Along Party Lines, House Committee Votes For Impeachment Articles Against Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines to send articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the House floor for a vote.

This is not the Republicans’ first attempt to impeach Mayorkas.

In 2023, right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) twice introduced articles of impeachment against the cabinet member. Neither was successful, but when she brought the articles to the House Floor, they were not passed out of the Judiciary Committee, which typically handles impeachments. Still, Homeland Security Committee chair Mark Green (R-Tennessee) credits Greene with “setting this process in motion.”

Republicans in the House have accused Mayorkas of “willful and systematic refusal to comply with the law” and a “breach of public trust” in his handling of America’s southern border.

There has been significant pushback from Democrats over the impeachment process, which many have called “a sham.”

During Tuesday’s hearing, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) said to his colleagues that “neither of the impeachment charges the committee will consider today are high crimes or misdemeanors,” the constitutional standard for impeachment.

Criticism of the impeachment move has crossed party lines as well. Long-time Republican stalwart lawyer Alan Dershowitz published an article Tuesday in which he stated, “Mayorkas has not committed bribery, treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors,” echoing points made by many a Democratic representative, and criticized Republicans for being “prepared to apply a double standard based on partisan consideration.”

Mayorkas himself wrote a letter to the committee early Tuesday touting the Biden administration’s increase in deportations and decrease in illegal border crossings, claiming his department lacks funding to uphold current laws, which would be provided by Congress. He further explained the lengths he has gone to comply with the committee’s requests and reaffirmed his commitment to a secure border.

Due to Republican’s slim margins in the House, it will take a unified effort to pass them and send them to the Senate for a trial – a prospect that Republicans say they are undaunted by despite the wavering of a few center-leaning representatives.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-California) said Republicans “haven’t found any evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.” Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) commented that “he’s not leaning in either direction.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado) said he’s a firm no on the impeachment

Regardless of what happens in the House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has called the impeachment “absurd” and a move by House Republicans to “appease one person and one person only, Donald Trump.”

The Senate would likely acquit Mayorkas if the articles do indeed make it there.

Schumer accused Republican lawmakers of not being “serious about handling the situation at the border,” mentioning the immigration bill currently being worked on by members of the Senate, which Trump has actively tried to kill. “While senators on both sides of the aisle are negotiating in good faith on border security, House Republicans keep exploiting the border only for political gain,” Schumer said.

Article by Clark Franzman